Alicia Keys Talks About Her Son’s Influence on Her New Album

Having a baby didn’t just change Alicia Keys as a person; it changed her as a musician too.

Alicia’s upcoming album Girl on Fire, due out November 27, was written after she had her baby boy, Egypt, nearly two years ago. Though the title of her fifth album isn’t a reference to The Hunger Games, it is about finding strength in yourself, something Alicia did after becoming a mom.

She told Entertainment Weekly she began to feel like she had a better sense of what was right for her career and felt strong enough to say no to the things that were wrong.

“You don’t have to take the s*** they dish out to you,” Alicia told the magazine. “You can actually make a conscious choice to say, ‘You know, that’s cool, but I’m going to leave that one behind.’ And there’s something very empowering about that—acknowledging how far you’ve come because of it and then being strong enough and brave enough to leave it behind.”

Her son might have played a large part in the making of the album, but Alicia hasn’t asked him to record anything for it. Though she admits she isn’t against taking a page from Jay Z’s book—his song “Glory” features the two-day old cries of his little girl Blue Ivy—and letting Egypt have a little cameo on the record.

“I don’t know; he may need to say a couple words,” she said. “There’s one song in particular called ‘When It’s All Over’ that he may need a little feature on. So we’ll see.”

Egypt will definitely be hitting the road with his mom though.

“I’m actually really excited about it because he’s at the perfect age to come with me,” she said. “He’s just at that great, beautiful age where he’s exploring so much and he’s learning so much. He’s taking everything in. I feel that 100% it’s going to make me look at the world in different eyes.”

Check here for news about Girl on Fire and any announcements about Alicia’s upcoming tour.